Read The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) for Free Online Page A

concubine was discovered. The fellow had been hauled up to Bishop Walter’s court in Exeter so quickly he hardly had time to pack. It was essential that a new man be appointed as chaplain, so Cryspyn had immediately sought out William of Carkill, who lived, hermit-like, on the small island of St Elidius, and sent him to run the church on Ennor until a replacement could be found. The Prior had his doubts about William, but the man appeared to have done a fair job, persuading some of the more disreputable characters to attend his church. His replacement at the little chapel of St Elidius was a strange young man. Luke needed watching, Cryspyn felt. The Prior was still unhappy about Luke’s motives for talking to Isok’s wife about her problems and giving her advice.
    Asthough his thoughts guided his eyes, he turned towards the little hump of rock north of his priory where, at this time of day, the tide would be on its way out. He glanced at the waters between St Nicholas and Ennor to gauge the depth against the trathen, the sand bar that reached between the two. Even as he did so, he felt sure he could see Luke. The man was down on the beach, striding towards the seas.
    Cryspyn drew in a deep breath and bit his inner cheek. Then, taking a fateful decision, he walked to the ladder, and climbed down, crossing the yardway to the gates.
    He would go and speak to the priest Luke.
    At the water’s edge, Tedia stood hopefully.
    Her husband had said that he was going to go out in the boat, and that gave her a little while to come here, to the southernmost point of St Nicholas, from where she should be able to see her lover on his way over from the main island of Ennor.
    It was hard to control her beating heart. Tedia was nearly two and twenty years old now. She had been married for some three years, and still the marriage was unconsummated. By committing adultery, she hoped she might find a little ease. She was desperate.
    That cow Brosia was so cruel, with her snide little comments about women who couldn’t please their men in bed. Brosia boasted that
she
found it easy. Her breasts were enough to make any man mad with lust, but then, as she would say with a sweet smile of pure venom, looking at Tedia, not all women were lucky enough to be so well-endowed.
    It was nothing to do with that, Tedia was sure of it. In a way, she still felt sorry for her man. Isok appeared desperate and ashamed, but there was nothing he could do. They had tried all forms of cure; Tedia had even gone to see a woman who was supposed to be wise, but the old whore had merely cackled and advised Tedia to put her hands to better use.
    Her hands were perfectly able with other men. There had been lovers enough when she was young who had enjoyed the way she used her hands. She had loved the feel of them, and she liked towatch the boys as their eyes grew languid, then urgent, their breath coming more swiftly, their hips thrusting. It was a form of power that she relished – until it came to scare her.
    That was when Peter Visconte, the priest at St Mary’s on Ennor, had been found out and removed from his position. Suddenly Tedia herself had realised that the pleasure she was giving, the pleasure she received, might be forbidden by God outside marriage. Eve had tempted her man and wrought terrible damage; Tedia was doing the same.
    Some of the men she had loved tried to persuade her otherwise: some had succeeded. The four years from hearing of the priest’s misbehaviour to her marriage had been sexually active, but with each coupling had come still more guilt. Tedia knew that only within marriage was a woman supposed to perform those acts which made a man cleave to her, and she had chosen her Isok because he was entirely innocent of such offences. Oh, he was generous to a fault as well, and he was kindly, and he had a good future with his fishing skills: all that swayed her, but not so much as the fact that he was still a virgin. To her knowledge he had not